In this week’s episode of the Extra Paycheck Podcast I am joined by an entrepreneur, photographer and speaker Nicholas Belliveau.
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Nicholas Belliveau is currently making most of his money as an independent photographer. He’s been an entrepreneur since an early age, obtained a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship, launched a few start-ups and is currently in his 5th start up incubator. You can say that the man is busy.
In 2014 he launched a tech start-up called Bootiq. The idea of this innovation was to offer 3D scans of people’s feet to make online shoes shopping. After 2 years Nicholas understood that his team concentrated too much on the product and not the customers or demand. In 2016 they decided to close the platform and move to new things. This experiment taught Nicholas a very valuable lesson – find your clients first.
Quite a few people commented on my podcast episodes complaining that only young, mortgage-less single people can launch a business. I completely disagree with it as I’ve had several entrepreneurs on this podcast who launched a business while working a full-time job, paying off mortgage and taking care of a family. Nicholas agrees with the fact that pretty much anyone can launch a business. His first suggestion is putting everything in perspective. One could be extremely sick and incapable of performing basic tasks, having a mortgage to pay and a family to feed doesn’t seen like such a burden in this perspective, does it?
Do not makes excuses and go for it. Bootstrapping is the way to go if you don’t have savings. Keep your job and work on your business part-time. Concentrate on finding your first paying customer. This can often be done with minimal to NO investment. Online offers a world of opportunity where started a business costs less than a $100. All you need is hosting and a domain name in order to start with affiliate marketing. There are many other business models that do not require an initial investment.
At some point Nicholas had just enough money to survive for 4 months. He tried to do marketing and a few other things but nothing seemed to work so he ended up getting a job in sales for the time being. The point is – there is always a job available if your business isn’t working out. After gaining some sales experience he went back to entrepreneurship and has been at it since. No excuses.
In this episode we’re also talking about comfort zones and fear of rejection. Many “wanna be entrepreneurs” claim that they’d love to start something but they just can’t risk losing their safe salary. I don’t believe there is such thing as “safe job”. Just recently Yellow Pages laid of 500 people in Canada. 500 people who had well-paid jobs and thought they are safe forever. Leaving your comfort zone is hard but it needs to be done. Fear of rejection is real but it can be tamed. You should check out Yes Theory channel on Youtube where these guys keep breaking out of their comfort zone and keep facing the rejection day after day.
At this point Nicholas is working on a few different projects. His biggest passion is public speaking and he’s building a portfolio in that industry among other things. He was approached to host his school’s TV show La Chaise Bleue. Since then Nicholas spoke at several events, interviewed US Consul General of Montreal and the Ambassador of France to Canada as well. There is much more awesome throughout the episode and you’ll need to listen to the full show.
Resources from today’s episode:
NBPhoto – Nicholas photography business | also on Instagram
60 Seconds Per Frame – YouTube channel
The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau (affiliate)
MTL+ECOMMERCE – Monthly eCommerce event in Montreal
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